author of the book diet for a dead planet and some of us go to thank you thank you all that's going to do it for us for now but for more on the stories we covered go to you tube dot com slash r t america or r t dot com slash usa and you can follow me on twitter i'm at christine frisell. you know sometimes you see a story and it seems so you think you understand it and then you glimpse something

else here's some other part of it and realized everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm sorry welcome to the big picture. and. more news today violence is once again flared up. these are the images the world has been seeing from the streets of canada. giant corporations to rule the day. came. to.

a low in welcome to cross talk i'm beautiful about invisible children or very visible truths and propaganda the documentary film that went viral on you tube about uganda's child soldiers and a warlord joseph kony has engendered very strong reactions is the film about the suffering of children or a well orchestrated plan preparing public opinion for still another western military adventure in a foreign country. live can. still live. to cross that the county two thousand and twelve campaign i'm joined by iowa johnson in london he is director at viewpoint africa and in award winning journalist and african affairs in paris we go to julie alone oh she is head of the africa desk at internet without borders and in washington we go to jendayi frazier she is a distinguished service professor at carnegie mellon university hines college and

department of social and decision sciences all right folks this is crossed i mean as you can jump in anytime you want i often go to you first in london what was your reaction to this documentary because i watched it very carefully twice actually for its production value and for its editorial value production value i'll give it a ten out of ten but for what its message was i was very deeply disturbed by it because i walked away from it not being an expert on africa but i felt it was a a exercise in very sophisticated propaganda it has very it has many hidden agendas . no doubt about that as was the slick video i think the makers got a fundamentally wrong when the video seemed to be stuck in a particular time which is about ten years ago. of course and was very very active in uganda and clearly he doctrine of children the the the war itself was physically

happening. very different from the ugandan that we know today which is very much about peace consciousness open for business and some of the scars associated with those crimes i was committed by the coin back then are not apparent today so there was clearly a distinction between what the video was about which was stuck in time stock in the past as opposed to what the true reality is where on the ground so this this distinction was not clearly identified and besides the video did not go to extreme lengths to actually show what uganda was like especially with those victims how many of them have actually grown up many of them are teenagers many of them are young adults the regional states hold especially in northern uganda has changed fundamentally people don't live in can't say anymore and not off course to the law the warlord in self there's of course in him self is his movements and his whereabouts are clearly are known so the media didn't get a holistic approach in terms of tackling me you can do issues and more so i think

it failed to look at some of the sensitivities associated with the victims because everything i wanted to hear back to that issue about agency and in the second year jenny if i go to view in washington why do you think this film came out now i mean it's very odd i mean you know it's already well known that this footage is what altered least a decade what is the why did two thousand and twelve and kill activism and this great tragedy when we don't we just heard that most of the tragic events betrayed in the documentary or in the past are not happening now. well i think it's important to say that invisible children has been engaged on this issue for many years and so this is just a ramping up of their campaign to try to increase public awareness or more importantly to put pressure on public officials to take action so i think this is a continuum it's not. a event that does not link to their past actions and

so i think it's just increasing their campaign now clearly they want more action from the obama administration and they got president obama on them and others you know to put one hundred military advisors into east africa and central africa to pursue fields of quality by supporting the regional militaries and i think that this is just their attempt i think it was probably somewhat ok unfortunate in the information that they gave which i agree with i always very out of date ok i'm going to do with it they're going to be hidden agenda and i'd like to i think there is a hidden agenda and we'll talk about those advisors that would you go to the end of last year but jeff if i have if i can ask you stay with you just before we go to paris i mean are you disturbed by this good guy bad guy bad guy approach of the documentary because he's getting government ten years ago i was most would say we're not good guys in these conflicts ok and i was well i think you are sorry and

that was whitewashed in this documentary why i don't think it was about the ugandan government this is not invisible children is an activist group that has been very much focused on joseph koni and so i think it's fine for other groups who have issues with the ugandan government to try to latch on to the success of their video to take attacks at president seven his government but they have a different agenda invisible children has been focused throughout its history or one joseph koni and not dealing with the domestic politics. so i think it's unfair to well it's charge them with i think it's a fair to say this information is old but i don't think it's i think it's not fair just to give one side of the story because there's a lot of bad character is not one side of the story well there is this only this one is that they must pick ok because they do mean governments it is well documented that ugandan government committed atrocities as well ten years ago i did

go to paris here julie what do you think it's again all new ok well i mean you can still talk about what happened ten years ago why watch history ok julie if i can go to you what do you think of the film i watched what do you think of the film and because you wrote a very interesting article about it i mean what are your reactions to the debates that have come out. yes ny reaction i wanted to stress on the point that kearney is a criminal everybody agrees with that and he must be arrested and charged for his crimes but there is a duty of truth for these all these people who spread mentioned messages on uganda and africa in general because the continent has changed anything that is the person who first round on criticism were africans who are saying i don't recognize myself in that in the picture you're into big thing and and probably try to stop what they considered as a lie and probably as an intent of propaganda by the coney video and if you three elements the invisible children's very questionable transparency in finances the

u.s. military a dent in the region which which had been announced in november and. their current state surrounding natural resources in the region you can understand why so many people suspected the video of actually misleading and producing another truth on purpose so i don't really agree with the fact that it was not a single story a lot of people a lot of africans i couldn't myself felt kind of offended and did not recognize themselves in the image depicted side by this short movie and in my opinion we if we have to talk about the u.s. policy in africa in general it has to be to take another step he has to go towards business like i was saying uganda is a country which is looking for business opportunities and that's what we want to foster what's that's what you africans like me want to foster of their country and i mean frankly very few and one in every one of the big criticisms that will come out is the agency issues that you need white people the west to come and sort

things out in africa how do you respond to that because it's very patronizing this film. it is and it comes back to that question of whether it's not about time that african stories are told by africans themselves and if it's not their responsibility to make sure they have the medians and the exposure opportunities to actually expose the stories in the fashion they would wish so to criticize the agency or this this particular child to enjoy or foundation for what they've done nothing is likely harsh but nonetheless a story nonetheless like they've told in their way a story to expose the people that they thought were doing wrong a story that's actually going to raise huge amounts of exposure for them as a business i'm going to raise millions and millions of dollars into their pockets so i think it's it's the wrong type of message to be raising money at the expense of those who've actually suffered the most which are the ugandan people who are mr may not even have a penny from this from this very you know so in fact gender you know not even seen

the film exactly jendayi i mean this is very interesting is that we were jewish you mentioned business but i mean there is these are the filmmakers and their backers are making business for example out of bracelets aside to solve problems in africa selling bracelets. well no i think their message was really misguided the idea that you're going to make kone famous and to put his image on t. shirt with twenty twelve as if he's campaigning for an elected office i think it was truly misguided message and so no i don't think that that's going to solve the problem of the l r a i think it was intended and fact to be an emotional appeal to raise awareness to raise funding and to put pressure on american officials and i think that there were many flaws in the in the design of that campaign which i think julian i'll speak very eloquently about that it is the perspective of

a westerner essentially invisible children took a global media it had a local message that was focused on an american and western audience and didn't take into consideration how it would impact uganda and the ugandan people or more specifically the victims of the l r a and so i think that it was very poorly designed from a message point of view but i don't think that we have to impute bad intentions on the part of invisible children i think that they just got their message and completely wrong and they should have had more guidance probably from the local people ok julian paris sure you know what i'm going to get ready for go ahead. yes yes yes but this invisible children has a responsibility when you take the rest and civility of. encouraging people to take action behind their screen and encourage it to take action for a complicated issue which is get a criminal in the company region you have

a duty of telling the truth you have to be ethical about this because there is another issue that we haven't dealt yet with is the the legal issue what does mean what does get caught. i mean i don't understand what get him means does he mean to kill him that's what i asked in my article does it mean to kill him or to arrest him and judge him we have to be clear in that and you cannot just tell get kone especially like i was saying to africans who have changed who are who are really really keen on being careful of what type of message is spread about their country and their continent and i wanted to all right i'm going to jump in here where you think it's also going to short break you're not about short break we'll continue our discussion on the controversial documentary film state party.

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take a. listen to the thinking. welcome back to crossfire back to remind you we're talking about the myths and realities if you can just children. take a. listen. i want to go back to you in london i'm not a conspiracy theorist i don't like conspiracies but you know at the end of last year we suddenly we hear american advisers being sent in to uganda to go chase down this warlord and then this film comes out and and the film the message is there it's you know if the west intervenes you know we have to make of this great effort to get rid of this man and there's it's there's implied it must be the west it must be the americans and us maybe europeans and american allies and it's and i'm very

sensitive this because you know all of these interventions lately and i can see one that has worked out very well and i can see how a country and uganda and its neighbors could fare very well with a military intervention there because actually it would make things worse not better. well a lot of people have made a lot of accusations against the question the engine question simply because of the way they've been able to raise money internally in the united states but if the ugandan army was on able to to to capture a coin if they weren't able to resolve the bitter war which they had ten years ago and it clearly does neighboring countries are clearly affected and if the united states wants to offer some level of supports through do you really only and let me ask you a question do you really think they don't know where he is if you believe well of

course it is impossible i think the technology is available now they could pinpoint anywhere everyone anywhere in the world i think they probably have a clue and it's intense jungle but again the conspiracy about whether the united states wants to use this opportunity to expand africa on across the african continent colonizing africa again these are some of the sentiments i don't necessarily share that i personally think that they probably are well intended because they don't physically have much of a presence on in uganda and in this particular instance i think it's just a few hundred american soldiers who are offering missis tents technological support millet you can google it says to the ugandan army and their neighbors to be able to tell the problems that's facing them ok jenny if i can go to you the american involvement in southeast asia starting a lead stories with some good intentions and a few hundred advisors i'd like to point that out here i mean what kind of footprint is the united states creating here in in uganda. you throw probably

a less of a footprint than the united states has in many other regions of the world in most regions including in europe and so on hundred soldiers as advisors spread across four countries is not a military footprint at all in fact it's doing too little from my perspective and it's primarily a matter of our intelligence is we do have intelligence we have been tracking me been developing that capability for many many years we have a charlie speakers who help coney's operational security is extremely good he rarely uses a radio and it is not at all easy to track him and we're not that prepared to share that information with a lot of other countries a lot of groups because yours concerned about losing that capacity and so they're there to give technical assistance to receive any intelligence that we get we get a lot of that from former of the peace who have escaped and therefore give more

information about how corny operates in the bush and his forces and how many they are and so it is not at all easy and there's not really a big military footprint again i say it's doing too little it's not doing too much ok julie what do you think about that you know once you open the gate to sometimes it's hard to get a guest to leave do you think about it. well i don't share the idea of creating to which the u.s. might use it kone case to to broaden its its africa mission in on the continent but i think we really feel that this kone action is that counterproductive example of what should be done but the u.s. policy should be like in africa now adays in my opinion the urgency for the u.s. is to foster business relationship when partnership become a partnership with this growing economy the growing countries africa is a market of one billion comes potential consumers which could be an opportunity for

american companies but also for africans and sell because they believe that doing business we can also tackle a lot of issues so when you see that nowadays only two percent of american foreign trade outflows are going to africa out only two percent or three hundred billion which is nothing i mean and most of them go to point and extractive minerals sector but for me it's not really relevant compared to the reality of the continent and with its interest has a lot of entrepreneurialism really. and that's what i would like to see it seems to me once again we go back to perceptions i really like what julie had to say here because again this documentary film makes africa look like a completely hopeless broken down place that just needs to be rescued and julie saying really just the opposite is that you know look at what we can really do would give us a fair chance of doing it this documentary is counterproductive in our perspective . yes yes on one hundred shows that help west africa and africa does not that's not

capable of addressing his own problems on its own yes but on the other hand it also shows an africa who's clearly understands how geopolitics works on the stands exactly the inference that the chinese have on the african continent and the fear that the united states and european allies alike wants to counterbalance that chinese influence so if the americans say getting involved in this campaign it could be on two fold firstly it could be to convey influence that was once lost one and also two don't forget that uganda like so many other countries a cross the africans are now awash with oil so that in itself could be an incentive agenda when you think about that every centrist thing is that you know this new kind of. neo colonial wave you know the united states western europe china is it turning into a playground for outsiders again and this film again really is so amazingly sentimental about the west should do ok and you know in the west doesn't have a good record in africa with all remember that. well i think the problem of us has

a mixed record in africa as africa has a mixed record as history has a mixed record i think that it's too simplistic to suggest it either we're going to be militarized or either we should do business or we should just do humanitarian issues or maybe we should just promote democracy in fact u.s. policy does all of those things it's a serious policy and it's a robust and holistic policy and we should be doing more i think it is not the uganda situation i just have to say and the support for the regional countries to try to pursue and arrest kone or kill corny as it may be is not about oil that effort has been going on since two thousand and two when the u.s. started sharing intelligence that helped lead to connie been dislodged in fact from northern uganda which is not picked up unfortunately in this film because it is simplistic but i don't think our analysis of u.s.

policy should be equally simplistic it is far more complex and we're trying to do many things at once and we are trying to develop a holistic approach for instance dealing with northern uganda and the corny issue we supported the ugandan military with intelligence and capacity night vision goggles cetera we also supported the people of northern uganda especially the charlie in terms of the peace process in terms of rehabilitating and reconciling the communities and trying to support former we supported the pre peace talks. would you prefer would have preferred a documentary on everything you've just said since two thousand and two do you think that would make people more aware of what's going on in africa or just with a documentary this would be sex no i would have it wouldn't be simplistic and not for often i have to say and i'm not trying to paint a broad brush. but allston activists and advocates who are trying to push

a single issue will do so on the basis of emotional appeal and on the basis of a simplistic message sex or reach the majority of people and i think that that is cloud of their trade it's unfortunate and so i'm not saying that the film the film should have been accurate in terms of the portrayal of uganda today if you want to talk about it historically it should have been clear that it was a store corporate trail but instead it presented all the facts as if they're current and that and that and the messaging make clearly they miss were the fundamental flaws i think of the twenty twelve video but i but i also think from the point of view of looking at us policy that we should not be equal simplistic all they're just trying to chase. all they're just militarize reality you heard all the regulatory very very rigorously. go go ahead go ahead julie jump in periscope.

we're just we're not being simplistic we're saying that efforts are not made where they should be i mean in my opinion like a sad it is high time for us is africa other than a simple stock of natural resources it's also. a potential economic potential that should be embraced also so that's what i'm saying we're not being simply think saying that it's it's a reality i usually figuring it is said to and i agree santa for in trade is going to africa it's not sufficient i agree i agree generally. i agree with your point but i don't think united states is simply seeing africa as a source of natural resources the united states under the clinton administration pushed past the africa growth and opportunity act which was an act which was to encourage trade with africa and to create a duty free entrance of african products into the american market well we've got to give those products from africa united states is trying to put in place policies

for transparency anti-corruption i think u.s. government doesn't do enough to support american companies and africa but we're covering a country that i don't know what i want to tell you and you know we're almost out of time here what is the legacy of this film in your opinion i mean is there and we know people know more or less or the wrong things about africa. well i think people know slightly more about africa it exposes africa for its frailties and its issues which are still synonymous with the continent sadly but i think it puts africa back on a spotlight i mean the numbers of people that have watched the video only celebrates that fact but again it's also shows that africa has to look at itself in the right kind expose its own stories in the fashion i think the wishes of course you can see quite clearly that you've done the things that there's been a little damage to its reputation moving forward which is why they're going to create a campaign now to show exactly what the current situation is uganda is right now to

sort of counter this massive exposure which sadly show you some out of america and somebody will make a documentary about the reactions to this documentary many thanks to my guests today in london paris and in washington and thanks for viewers for watching us here to see you next time and remember rostov because. if you. start. to see the old still. you know how sometimes you see a story and it seems so for life you think you understand it and then he limps something else you hear sees some other part of it and realize that everything is ok you don't come on target welcome to the big picture.

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